137 jobs lost as Artenius UK calls in administrators

Administrators from Deloitte were called into the Teesside firm yesterday after La Seda de Barcelona announced a five-year restructuring of the business to focus on PET products and divest material production sites.

The Artenius site in Wilton near Redcar had been hit by high costs and La Seda has already closed one division. Artenius UK employed 242 staff. “The site’s energy costs have increased significantly causing the firm to make losses,” La Seda said in a statement.

Daniel Butters, Neville Kahn and Philip Bowers of Deloitte were yesterday appointed administrators of Artenius UK.

Butters said the company was continuing to trade while they worked to sell the company as a going concern.

“Regretfully we have been forced to announce 137 redundancies today, mostly in respect of the already closed division. We are extremely grateful to the staff and management for their cooperation during this difficult time,” he said.

Earlier this month, La Seda revealed it was considering restructuring the business after recording a pre-tax loss of EUR 652m in 2008.

The restructuring announced yesterday also involves the divestment of non-core activities, including plants in Turkey, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, with a value of EUR 250-320m.

In 2007, La Seda bought Amcor’s European PET plants for £287m.

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